San Juan Islands....Lopez visit part 1

Thursday morning we drove to La Conner and boated out into the San Juan Islands. Beautiful little group of islands located between Washington State and Vancouver Island, Canada. One of the small islands on the way to Lopez Island where we were going to spend the night.

The weather was overcast the entire time we were in the islands, but everything was still beautiful.

A variety of pleasure boats of all sorts run the waters in between the islands.

Ferries run to some of the larger islands. The advantage to the ferry is having a car once you get to your destination. There are bikes and kayaks to be rented on the island we were headed towards, but we weren't going to be there long enough to bother renting.

A first view towards Lopez Village where we would stay. It is a half mile walk from the marina to the village. I liked this church that can be seen through the old barn here. It had an unusual tower....square with 4 small corner towers on top.

We stayed at Lopez Lodge, which I would recommend. This was the view from our window. We are behind a bakery...good place to have breakfast! This part of the village is on a spit of land sticking out between the bay where the marina is and more water that you see here beyond the houses.

Some crows? I saw on a fence while walking around. Mike and I decided to walk out the spit towards the water to see what birds we could see.

We hadn't gone far when we saw a sign for a wetlands trail between the hedgerows. There are suppose to be lots of sparrows there and swallows. We saw both but I'm not sure which ones.

A sign giving more information about the transition area between the fields and the saltmarsh. It mentions Savannah Sparrows, Song Sparrows, Violet-Green Swallows and Barn Swallows. I may have seen them all.

I liked this misty view out over the fields.

Over the meadow towards the water with the marina in the distance.

A swallow on a branch

A sparrow

There was a huge area of logs between the meadow and the water. Left over from logging days maybe? The birds love it.

The logs with the vegetation growing between.

A sparrow peeking out of the bushes.

Sparrow on one of the logs.

Another sparrow. There were plenty of House Sparrows around, too. I saw one feeding a baby...just like at home :-)

Ducks settling in for the night. You can see a light drizzle was falling.

Gulls settled in. Not sure about those spotty birds.

Great Blue Heron fishing for supper.

A view of the beach area from a little public access spot. Much is private property. There is much more to Lopez Island that with a car or bike would be wonderful to explore. I'd like to go back and spend a week there rather than one night!